Absolutely gutted!! Head spinning trying to work out what had gone wrong, I stepped off the scales with a little bit of disgust!
The previous week had been spot on, I had planned out what I was eating, I had started back properly at the gym, I was weight training, I was doing boxing again...so why was the number on the scales only three pounds less than last week?
I know to most people that A 3ib loss is a fantastic result, but for me it was a bit of an anticlimax to what I was expecting!
Now I think that monitoring the "KPI's" is a crucial part of this battle but it is not the be all and end all of the process. Clothes this week have started feeling a lot looser, I'm sticking my belt up two extra notches and I've noticed how much easier everything seems to be again!
Never one to be deterred, today has seen me start something a little bit different!! Zumba!!
I wasn't 100% sure what to expect of this class, and I was glad that I wasn't the only boy doing it either, although I have to add that both of us who were doing it were obviously not Heterosexuals!!
The reason I've taken to group activity recently has been two fold, I believe, that it makes you work harder due to the embarrassment factor of not wanting to be the one sitting out, and more over, I am trying to improve my balance and co-ordination in order to take up skiing and snow boarding later in the year!
The music started off like having a meal in Nando's and at one point I was expecting us to break into the Macarena, we ended up doing some quite high energy moves to David Geutta thankfully! I was terrible at it, but I'm sure it will come with time! Got in a decent weights session afterwards, and then had a pleasant walk home!
Thursday, 27 February 2014
Friday, 21 February 2014
Its all about the journey...
Well again, it seams like I'm apologising for the lack updates!
So what has occurred in the, shameful, 8 months since my last post?
Well I hit my interim target: 10 stone off, and in time for Florida, made the flight, terrified admittedly at first by the thought of being chucked off, but as it happens all was fine in that respect, then secondly by the sheer number of bumps, growls and noises that a 747 makes hurtling down the runway at 160mph, this of course being my first flight, and then seeing the Cheshire countryside fall beneath my feet as we glided off over the Atlantic!! For the record I now love flying and have barely had my feet on the ground since!!
Finally got the big promotion I was after, another thing that I think my weight held me back in...but this lead to a crash back down to earth...with a bit of a bump!!
My new job is very project based and requires a lot of time, and a lot and I mean a lot of travelling with the farthest reaches of my area being 3 hours and about 150 miles from home, as well as a lot of hotel stays, big hotel breakfasts, and bigger hotel dinners...all from the Buffet!! It was like being back in America!!
Now leaving home at 4 in the morning, and getting back at 8 at night, and this was an average day, there was only one way that my weight was going to go. . . 4 months into the new job and I'm up by 2 and a half stone!!
I've spent a lot of time reflecting on this, and if I could have done anything different? The answer ultimately is yes, but it's taken me back a long way to when I first lost all of my weight 10 years ago!
I have learnt I am a person of extremes, I don't do middle of the road, I don't do "medium" (in any sense of the word) and if it's going right, it goes extremely right, and if it goes wrong it tends to be a bit of a train wreck! This trait is something that other people have told me about myself on lots of occasions, and its something that I really struggle to control.
In the past coming off track (pardon the train puns!) has lead to a huge downward spirals, which I have never been able to catch myself in until it was too late.
Being a little older and wiser, I'm a little more self aware now and I've been so accutely aware of the changes that have happened over the last four months:
1) Tiredness - my sleep pattern has been absolutely in a mess, and I am always exhausted, my energy levels were down!
2) Clothes! Argh!! I've spent about £200 on Superdry and G-Star Tshirts which I could get into in America, but oddly feel like they have shrunk!!
3) Health - it's nothing major but the number of aches and pains I have had the last few months are starting to get to me!
So what's all this amounting to? Well it's been a very good learning experience. Having been back on plan for about a week, the change in how I feel has been amazing! I've had to adapt some of my choices around trying to get the gym in, which means I'm sometimes out later at night, but by being a bit smarter in how I plan my work days, it's been very easy to fall back into the old (good) habits!!
I'm going to start being a bit more regular as to how often I post too, as I want to try and capture a lot of my progress through this blog.
So what has occurred in the, shameful, 8 months since my last post?
Well I hit my interim target: 10 stone off, and in time for Florida, made the flight, terrified admittedly at first by the thought of being chucked off, but as it happens all was fine in that respect, then secondly by the sheer number of bumps, growls and noises that a 747 makes hurtling down the runway at 160mph, this of course being my first flight, and then seeing the Cheshire countryside fall beneath my feet as we glided off over the Atlantic!! For the record I now love flying and have barely had my feet on the ground since!!
Finally got the big promotion I was after, another thing that I think my weight held me back in...but this lead to a crash back down to earth...with a bit of a bump!!
My new job is very project based and requires a lot of time, and a lot and I mean a lot of travelling with the farthest reaches of my area being 3 hours and about 150 miles from home, as well as a lot of hotel stays, big hotel breakfasts, and bigger hotel dinners...all from the Buffet!! It was like being back in America!!
Now leaving home at 4 in the morning, and getting back at 8 at night, and this was an average day, there was only one way that my weight was going to go. . . 4 months into the new job and I'm up by 2 and a half stone!!
I've spent a lot of time reflecting on this, and if I could have done anything different? The answer ultimately is yes, but it's taken me back a long way to when I first lost all of my weight 10 years ago!
I have learnt I am a person of extremes, I don't do middle of the road, I don't do "medium" (in any sense of the word) and if it's going right, it goes extremely right, and if it goes wrong it tends to be a bit of a train wreck! This trait is something that other people have told me about myself on lots of occasions, and its something that I really struggle to control.
In the past coming off track (pardon the train puns!) has lead to a huge downward spirals, which I have never been able to catch myself in until it was too late.
Being a little older and wiser, I'm a little more self aware now and I've been so accutely aware of the changes that have happened over the last four months:
1) Tiredness - my sleep pattern has been absolutely in a mess, and I am always exhausted, my energy levels were down!
2) Clothes! Argh!! I've spent about £200 on Superdry and G-Star Tshirts which I could get into in America, but oddly feel like they have shrunk!!
3) Health - it's nothing major but the number of aches and pains I have had the last few months are starting to get to me!
So what's all this amounting to? Well it's been a very good learning experience. Having been back on plan for about a week, the change in how I feel has been amazing! I've had to adapt some of my choices around trying to get the gym in, which means I'm sometimes out later at night, but by being a bit smarter in how I plan my work days, it's been very easy to fall back into the old (good) habits!!
I'm going to start being a bit more regular as to how often I post too, as I want to try and capture a lot of my progress through this blog.
Saturday, 15 June 2013
Well Hello There...it's been a while...
The lack of updates over the last few months has not been hiding the lack of progress.
The last blog that I wrote, which was shockingly back in November! I had lost about 2-3 stones at that point, well now, I'm knocking on the 9 stone mark!! Hopefully I will be collecting that award this Wednesday!! Naturally, there has been some ups and downs along the way, and more set backs recently, with May virtually a write-off in terms of weight-loss due to a number of issues.
However, back on track now, and had a 6.5ib loss last week. On track for Florida in September, and setting myself some goals for when I get back, including taking up snowboarding, hence trying to improve my co-ordination and taking up Body Combat (I do my first session tomorrow, will let you all know how it goes!).
Just to give you a sense of what loosing 9 stone is like, my waist size has dropped by 12 inches, and obviously this is not the end, hopefully the following two pictures will give you a sense of the loss: The one on the left was taken in 2011, and the second just yesterday.
I have found myself again increasingly critical of people who have little motivation to change their state, and I am starting to find it more and more worrying about how "acceptable" it is to now be morbidly obese. Increasingly we are accepting that people are getting bigger and bigger and we are adapting and accommodating it rather than fighting it.
My good friend Paul Gately, was recently featured on Channel 5's Big Body Squad, a 6 part series detailing how in the UK alone, a whole industry has sprung up supporting the morbidly obese. From ambulances specially adapted, to builders who's niche is to rebuild houses for the morbidly obese, bed and furniture manufacturers who are building furniture rated to take up to 60 stones.
I have spent most of my evening catching up on the final three episodes of this series, and the one common theme from it, is that most of the individuals featured have just given up, and we are allowing them to.
This is not to say that there are cases where people have legitimate medical complaints which cause them to gain weight, but those are the exception, the norm with these small group of people is that they are in the position they are in because of their eating habits, and yet by supporting them being the size that they are, we reinforce that it is acceptable. Maybe I am too harsh, or I see things too simplistic, but why should we, and the NHS, and taxpayers be funding a £7,000 bed for someone who is 45stones? It is an uncomfortable state to be in and I speak from experience here, I was only 3 stones behind that? Surely we need to be plunging this money into stopping this epidemic dead! I don't have the answers as to how we do it, the reasons are so vast but personal responsibility MUST be instilled in people to be accountable for the states that they get in!
So that raises the question...do I take that same sense of accountability? When I was 42 stones? Absolutely, I knew exactly who was responsible and exactly, who would get me out of that position, and that determination was my starting point!
The last blog that I wrote, which was shockingly back in November! I had lost about 2-3 stones at that point, well now, I'm knocking on the 9 stone mark!! Hopefully I will be collecting that award this Wednesday!! Naturally, there has been some ups and downs along the way, and more set backs recently, with May virtually a write-off in terms of weight-loss due to a number of issues.
However, back on track now, and had a 6.5ib loss last week. On track for Florida in September, and setting myself some goals for when I get back, including taking up snowboarding, hence trying to improve my co-ordination and taking up Body Combat (I do my first session tomorrow, will let you all know how it goes!).
Just to give you a sense of what loosing 9 stone is like, my waist size has dropped by 12 inches, and obviously this is not the end, hopefully the following two pictures will give you a sense of the loss: The one on the left was taken in 2011, and the second just yesterday.
I have found myself again increasingly critical of people who have little motivation to change their state, and I am starting to find it more and more worrying about how "acceptable" it is to now be morbidly obese. Increasingly we are accepting that people are getting bigger and bigger and we are adapting and accommodating it rather than fighting it.
My good friend Paul Gately, was recently featured on Channel 5's Big Body Squad, a 6 part series detailing how in the UK alone, a whole industry has sprung up supporting the morbidly obese. From ambulances specially adapted, to builders who's niche is to rebuild houses for the morbidly obese, bed and furniture manufacturers who are building furniture rated to take up to 60 stones.
I have spent most of my evening catching up on the final three episodes of this series, and the one common theme from it, is that most of the individuals featured have just given up, and we are allowing them to.
This is not to say that there are cases where people have legitimate medical complaints which cause them to gain weight, but those are the exception, the norm with these small group of people is that they are in the position they are in because of their eating habits, and yet by supporting them being the size that they are, we reinforce that it is acceptable. Maybe I am too harsh, or I see things too simplistic, but why should we, and the NHS, and taxpayers be funding a £7,000 bed for someone who is 45stones? It is an uncomfortable state to be in and I speak from experience here, I was only 3 stones behind that? Surely we need to be plunging this money into stopping this epidemic dead! I don't have the answers as to how we do it, the reasons are so vast but personal responsibility MUST be instilled in people to be accountable for the states that they get in!
So that raises the question...do I take that same sense of accountability? When I was 42 stones? Absolutely, I knew exactly who was responsible and exactly, who would get me out of that position, and that determination was my starting point!
Sunday, 18 November 2012
One step backwards but three steps forward
Yes you did read that right! This week has been an odd concoction of learning experiences which has really confirmed what I thought I knew - that my current behaviour is starting to become such second nature that going back to where I was in March is almost unthinkable.
Last weekend was spend exploring Western Germany, with maybe a few too many beers and certainly more sausage than you can shake a frankfurter at (I'll forgo the obvious innuendo here!) so my weigh in was broadly flat on Wednesday, non-on, but still not the leaps and bounds I had hoped for so I felt a little bit dejected.
Now in the past, a "setback" like that might have thrown me off course, but it just made me even more focused to achieve my target to loose another 20kg by Christmas. Derailing therefore was not an option. Instead I took a long hard look at what I had had to eat, and drink in Germany, and just refocused. I've never really been a massive fan of food planning to the tiniest detail, but it does have its uses, and one thing I'm going to do in the future is make sure that I have planned all of my meals for the aftermath of a big heady weekend away before I've gone, then there's no "oh well let's wait another day" to getting back on track.
This has worked, this week everyday I've been below 1700 calories, my target of 2000 means that I have some headroom left in the event of any external factors. Most days this week I've been around 1500!
One further step forward this week has been clothes! I have finally had to admit defeat with work trousers, and gone out and buy new ones, a whole 8 inches smaller in the waist than when I started out on this journey. It's a real boost to see results like that. Stats, graphs, and KPI's as I discussed last time are one thing, but seeing clothes that actually don't fit you because they are too big, is the biggest boost you can have!
A final thought: I was talking to an overweight guy on the train into work the other morning one of our regular commuters. He's not as big as me and probably two-three years older than me. His attitude was appalling and one that I really couldn't understand.
He actually came up to me, knowing I worked for the train company, and said that he'd noticed my weight loss over the last few months and that he was very envious! We shared experiences of weight gain, and going through your teens and twenties overweight. I asked him why he had never attempted to loose it!
His response was "this is what I am!"
Maybe I am wrong to judge other people here, but how can someone, who acknowledges the risk that obesity causes to them, is suffering with the affects of it be too blasé to actually try and make an effort. I provided him with this blog, and some of the techniques I have been using. Hopefully he's reading this and will make a positive change, if not, then I find that sad, and yet another reason why this journey for me is definitely going to be a one way ticket down...
Last weekend was spend exploring Western Germany, with maybe a few too many beers and certainly more sausage than you can shake a frankfurter at (I'll forgo the obvious innuendo here!) so my weigh in was broadly flat on Wednesday, non-on, but still not the leaps and bounds I had hoped for so I felt a little bit dejected.
Now in the past, a "setback" like that might have thrown me off course, but it just made me even more focused to achieve my target to loose another 20kg by Christmas. Derailing therefore was not an option. Instead I took a long hard look at what I had had to eat, and drink in Germany, and just refocused. I've never really been a massive fan of food planning to the tiniest detail, but it does have its uses, and one thing I'm going to do in the future is make sure that I have planned all of my meals for the aftermath of a big heady weekend away before I've gone, then there's no "oh well let's wait another day" to getting back on track.
This has worked, this week everyday I've been below 1700 calories, my target of 2000 means that I have some headroom left in the event of any external factors. Most days this week I've been around 1500!
One further step forward this week has been clothes! I have finally had to admit defeat with work trousers, and gone out and buy new ones, a whole 8 inches smaller in the waist than when I started out on this journey. It's a real boost to see results like that. Stats, graphs, and KPI's as I discussed last time are one thing, but seeing clothes that actually don't fit you because they are too big, is the biggest boost you can have!
A final thought: I was talking to an overweight guy on the train into work the other morning one of our regular commuters. He's not as big as me and probably two-three years older than me. His attitude was appalling and one that I really couldn't understand.
He actually came up to me, knowing I worked for the train company, and said that he'd noticed my weight loss over the last few months and that he was very envious! We shared experiences of weight gain, and going through your teens and twenties overweight. I asked him why he had never attempted to loose it!
His response was "this is what I am!"
Maybe I am wrong to judge other people here, but how can someone, who acknowledges the risk that obesity causes to them, is suffering with the affects of it be too blasé to actually try and make an effort. I provided him with this blog, and some of the techniques I have been using. Hopefully he's reading this and will make a positive change, if not, then I find that sad, and yet another reason why this journey for me is definitely going to be a one way ticket down...
Friday, 2 November 2012
What get's measured, get's managed...
So I'm now 7 weeks into this since I really started hitting the gym and watching my food intake, and it already starts to feel like what I am doing is becoming habit, and is ingrained in the fibre of my being.
They say that for a behaviour to become second nature takes 12 weeks, well I suppose I am now over half way through that process, and it's these next 5 weeks that are going to be the most crucial to cement and embed what I am doing!
Now as a 20-something management type with a degree in business, I like my Excel Spreadsheets, I like my KPI's and my SMART Objectives (Key Performance Indicators and Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Time, Realistic...cos I know some people will have gone "eh?") and my Outputs, these are the things that I get results with in my job, and well with 7 weeks worth of data to pour over, these are what I can start to measure in my Quest for Slimming Success.
My key KPI's are obviously my actual weight, calories consumed, calories burnt, but taking this a step further into my actual work outs, distance, time, heart rate and weight pushed (or pulled) are all critical.
I have already mentioned MyFitnessPal (http://www.myfitnesspal.com/) and I cannot stress how much of a simple one stop shop this little app is, and its associated website. Some of the calculations are not 100% especially as we get into the bigger ranges of weight, but they give you the general trend.
The next set of KPI's, about physical activity I can strongly recommend Nike+ (http://nikeplus.nike.com/) which with an Iphone or Ipod, you can track activity as you do it, I am lucky as I go to a Virgin Active gym we have TechnoGym cardio equipment which interfaces directly with your iPhone and your workout and a whole raft of stats about your workout.
The major output are two fold: 1 - my weight, and 2, something that has always been close to my heart - clothes!
I have started to feel a difference in my clothes, I have had to downsize considerably in the trouser department already, and my work trousers have had to be binned as they won't stay up any longer!
My weight, although I don't know for definite what my starting weight was is now being measured, and in the past week I had lost 11 1/2 pounds! Now extrapolating (big word alert) that back, I must have lost at least the 3 stone mark by now!
Now I have set myself a short term goal to see me through till Christmas.
Loose 4 Stone (56ibs) by 21st of December. Its specific, measurable and will be done so weekly, the time is 8 weeks, based on performance to date it is achievable and it is realistic.
This ties into my other Output, clothes, when I lost all of my weight before, I went mad, spending £1000s on anything with a name on it from Prada and Versace to G-Star and Diesel, fashion might have moved on, but my love of it hasn't, so I've bought my self some new clothes to get into when I hit that target of 4 stones!
Now, I have been plugging websites and app's galore, but this is the biggest one, and a thank you to the new lady in my life, Allison. The one thing that I got from wrtiing my last blog was that I need support along this journey, and so I have joined Slimming World with a friend. Alison, our consultant, has given me some fantastic new ideas for healthy eating, and proved to be a real dynamo of motivation and support! (https://www.facebook.com/groups/314882326512/?fref=ts)
They say that for a behaviour to become second nature takes 12 weeks, well I suppose I am now over half way through that process, and it's these next 5 weeks that are going to be the most crucial to cement and embed what I am doing!
Now as a 20-something management type with a degree in business, I like my Excel Spreadsheets, I like my KPI's and my SMART Objectives (Key Performance Indicators and Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Time, Realistic...cos I know some people will have gone "eh?") and my Outputs, these are the things that I get results with in my job, and well with 7 weeks worth of data to pour over, these are what I can start to measure in my Quest for Slimming Success.
My key KPI's are obviously my actual weight, calories consumed, calories burnt, but taking this a step further into my actual work outs, distance, time, heart rate and weight pushed (or pulled) are all critical.
I have already mentioned MyFitnessPal (http://www.myfitnesspal.com/) and I cannot stress how much of a simple one stop shop this little app is, and its associated website. Some of the calculations are not 100% especially as we get into the bigger ranges of weight, but they give you the general trend.
The next set of KPI's, about physical activity I can strongly recommend Nike+ (http://nikeplus.nike.com/) which with an Iphone or Ipod, you can track activity as you do it, I am lucky as I go to a Virgin Active gym we have TechnoGym cardio equipment which interfaces directly with your iPhone and your workout and a whole raft of stats about your workout.
The major output are two fold: 1 - my weight, and 2, something that has always been close to my heart - clothes!
I have started to feel a difference in my clothes, I have had to downsize considerably in the trouser department already, and my work trousers have had to be binned as they won't stay up any longer!
My weight, although I don't know for definite what my starting weight was is now being measured, and in the past week I had lost 11 1/2 pounds! Now extrapolating (big word alert) that back, I must have lost at least the 3 stone mark by now!
Now I have set myself a short term goal to see me through till Christmas.
Loose 4 Stone (56ibs) by 21st of December. Its specific, measurable and will be done so weekly, the time is 8 weeks, based on performance to date it is achievable and it is realistic.
This ties into my other Output, clothes, when I lost all of my weight before, I went mad, spending £1000s on anything with a name on it from Prada and Versace to G-Star and Diesel, fashion might have moved on, but my love of it hasn't, so I've bought my self some new clothes to get into when I hit that target of 4 stones!
Now, I have been plugging websites and app's galore, but this is the biggest one, and a thank you to the new lady in my life, Allison. The one thing that I got from wrtiing my last blog was that I need support along this journey, and so I have joined Slimming World with a friend. Alison, our consultant, has given me some fantastic new ideas for healthy eating, and proved to be a real dynamo of motivation and support! (https://www.facebook.com/groups/314882326512/?fref=ts)
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
Age Concern down Memory Lane
I am now 27! This fact, despite a lot of celebrations of my birthday involving a 2000mile train trip across the country, an ice bar, and a lot of Jagermeister, really only dawned on me today when discussing our respective ages at work and one of our senior managers who turns 40 this year. I actually thought she was already in her 40's, but naturally you don't say that out loud, it doesn't make for career enhancing stuff!!
So what's the relevance of the age? Well nothing really, in a lot of ways I still feel like I'm 18 or younger, just that now I kind of have more of a sense of who I am than I did then, and then that thought led onto: well who are you? I'm sure you're thinking that this is sounding far too introspective to be good for this sort of blog? Well bare with, the inner emo needs to out itself once in a while.
So how do I define myself? Gay? Yes! A geek? Certainly! I pride myself on not following convention, but then, and hypocritically so, like to follow convention when it suits me! Creative? Yes, but it probably doesn't get out as much as I would like! A railway professional? Yes, my career, after my friends, is probably the most important thing in my life! So then were do I define myself as fat? Well actually I don't. I generally speaking, and this is odd, do not think of myself as a "fat" person.
Now you're thinking, Col, have you lost your mind and ended up with some kind of reverse body-dismorphic syndrome? No, and it's not about size, its about mindset. I am aware of my size, aware of it more than most, but its not how I think of myself.
Now this is important, as it helps me on this journey as "this" is not "me" and in the mind set I am in now, it makes me more and more determined that in a year to 18 months, I'm going to be vastly different in size than I am now!
So where does my age come into this post? Well for the first time in my life, and I am aware this is a dangerous statement to make here, I feel like I am in control of the factors that affect my weight. My motivation is locked into this course now, and the things that I am doing, planing meals, making packed lunches, going to the gym, actively pushing myself at the gym and having the organisation to go!
Now I wouldn't consider myself an expert, but the basics of nutrition and exercise are essential for someone on this journey, and I would say that I know more than most, I think a few of my close friends who I talk to about this journey have been surprised just how much I know about putting a fitness plan together, but like a fire, there's a triangle of things needed to make it burn, and knowledge is but one.
Secondly, there's motivation, and again, age plays a factor here, again, it shocks me that its been 10 years since I lost the weight before. When I was doing all of the media and press interviews before, I used to quite bluntly (and playing the media headline game I have to admit) say "I would be dead before I hit 30 had I not turned my life around!" Well turns out that there's actually not that much time left before the big three-zero, and that thought, sobering as it is, still scares me. There's other motivators too of course, image for me being the biggest one!
Lastly, and the third side of our "weight loss triangle" is mindset. I'm not quite sure where this comes from and if I did, I don't think I'd have ever regressed, but its different to motivation, motivation is what keeps you going, mindset is what draws everything together, I have always had motivators to want to loose weight, but getting those motivators, the technical knowledge and the mindset right all at the same time is a battle of its very own!
My point here, the connection, is that sometimes you need certain things to align before things can happen, and whilst, yes I am 27, maybe its taken all of these years for these three parts of the weight loss triangle to combine in me to make this fire burn?!
So what's the relevance of the age? Well nothing really, in a lot of ways I still feel like I'm 18 or younger, just that now I kind of have more of a sense of who I am than I did then, and then that thought led onto: well who are you? I'm sure you're thinking that this is sounding far too introspective to be good for this sort of blog? Well bare with, the inner emo needs to out itself once in a while.
So how do I define myself? Gay? Yes! A geek? Certainly! I pride myself on not following convention, but then, and hypocritically so, like to follow convention when it suits me! Creative? Yes, but it probably doesn't get out as much as I would like! A railway professional? Yes, my career, after my friends, is probably the most important thing in my life! So then were do I define myself as fat? Well actually I don't. I generally speaking, and this is odd, do not think of myself as a "fat" person.
Now you're thinking, Col, have you lost your mind and ended up with some kind of reverse body-dismorphic syndrome? No, and it's not about size, its about mindset. I am aware of my size, aware of it more than most, but its not how I think of myself.
Now this is important, as it helps me on this journey as "this" is not "me" and in the mind set I am in now, it makes me more and more determined that in a year to 18 months, I'm going to be vastly different in size than I am now!
So where does my age come into this post? Well for the first time in my life, and I am aware this is a dangerous statement to make here, I feel like I am in control of the factors that affect my weight. My motivation is locked into this course now, and the things that I am doing, planing meals, making packed lunches, going to the gym, actively pushing myself at the gym and having the organisation to go!
Now I wouldn't consider myself an expert, but the basics of nutrition and exercise are essential for someone on this journey, and I would say that I know more than most, I think a few of my close friends who I talk to about this journey have been surprised just how much I know about putting a fitness plan together, but like a fire, there's a triangle of things needed to make it burn, and knowledge is but one.
Secondly, there's motivation, and again, age plays a factor here, again, it shocks me that its been 10 years since I lost the weight before. When I was doing all of the media and press interviews before, I used to quite bluntly (and playing the media headline game I have to admit) say "I would be dead before I hit 30 had I not turned my life around!" Well turns out that there's actually not that much time left before the big three-zero, and that thought, sobering as it is, still scares me. There's other motivators too of course, image for me being the biggest one!
Lastly, and the third side of our "weight loss triangle" is mindset. I'm not quite sure where this comes from and if I did, I don't think I'd have ever regressed, but its different to motivation, motivation is what keeps you going, mindset is what draws everything together, I have always had motivators to want to loose weight, but getting those motivators, the technical knowledge and the mindset right all at the same time is a battle of its very own!
My point here, the connection, is that sometimes you need certain things to align before things can happen, and whilst, yes I am 27, maybe its taken all of these years for these three parts of the weight loss triangle to combine in me to make this fire burn?!
Thursday, 27 September 2012
Happy Birthday to Me!
I am not 27...I have decided I am in my mid 20's still, and if anyone asks me, I'm 24 and 36 months. I know that 27 is not old, and I certainly most of the time still feel like I am 17, but, it really bothers me to think that I am creeping closer and closer to 30 year old!
Anyway, lots planned over the next few days, including a trip to TGI Fridays and then off to Bonny Scotland!!
Gym was good yesterday but busy and full of the sort of people that seem to like to stand around and hog machines so I got a bit frustrated, but thanks to Mr Geutta and his Little Bad Girl, managed an extra .02km taking my personal best now to 6.79km in 15 minutes!
Oh well means I can justify that Chocolate Fudge cake tomorrow?!
Anyway, lots planned over the next few days, including a trip to TGI Fridays and then off to Bonny Scotland!!
Gym was good yesterday but busy and full of the sort of people that seem to like to stand around and hog machines so I got a bit frustrated, but thanks to Mr Geutta and his Little Bad Girl, managed an extra .02km taking my personal best now to 6.79km in 15 minutes!
Oh well means I can justify that Chocolate Fudge cake tomorrow?!
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